VIDEO: Steve Jobs: Apple's driving force

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6 October 2011 Last updated at 03:56 GMT Help

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Wasps owner decides to sell club

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Hayes joined the Wasps board in 2007, before taking ownership on December 2008 Wasps owner Steve Hayes has announced he is looking to sell the club.

Hayes, who also owns Wycombe Wanderers FC - Wasps' fellow tenants at Adams Park - bought the Premiership outfit in 2008.

Hayes said a failure to receive backing for a new stadium at Wycombe Air Park had contributed towards the decision.

"The vision of planning and developing this facility was one of the key reasons I got involved in the club," he told the Wasps website.

"And being unable to bring this to fruition remains bitterly disappointing.

Continue reading the main story June 2004: Buys a 25% stake in Wycombe WanderersOctober 2007: Joins the Wasps board after buying 11.6% stake in the clubJanuary 2009: Takes full ownership of WaspsJuly 2009: Becomes owner of Wycombe, where he was previously managing directorJuly 2011: Fails in bid to create a new stadium for both clubsOctober 2011: Announces he is looking to sell Wasps

"I fully believe that a new stadium for Wasps is essential in the coming years as we have always said that Adams Park was unsustainable as a long-term option.

"I will work with any potential owners to develop the sporting village model we had already come up with at an alternative location."

In his three years at the club Hayes has started an annual St George's Day game at Twickenham and oversaw an English club's first competitive game overseas.

"Any new owner will have to show me that their aspirations are to provide London Wasps with the right level of investment and structure to ensure that they are once again a team in the hunt for titles at the end of every season," the businessman added.

Former Wasps forward Lawrence Dallaglio, who is a member of the club's board, said: "Steve's passion and vision over the past number of years has helped bring the club to new audiences around the world and any new owners will take on a club in a healthy position in terms of the direction it is heading on and off the pitch."

Hayes insisted he will remain at the helm of Wycombe, but has not ruled out a future sale of the League One side.

"I want to assure [Wycombe supporters] that I remain fully committed to Wycombe Wanderers," he explained.

"Of course, as ever, if approaches are made to me for the club then these would be considered carefully based on what is best for the club but for now my intention is to remain the owner for the foreseeable future."

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Minimum wage up by 15p to £6.08

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30 September 2011 Last updated at 23:01 GMT The increase takes account of the current economic uncertainty The minimum wage has gone up, with the main rate for adults aged 21 or over rising by 15p to ￡6.08 an hour.

The development rate - for those aged 18 to 20 - goes up by 6p to ￡4.98 an hour, for 16 and 17-year-olds it rises by 4p to ￡3.68 an hour and the hourly apprentice rate rises by 10p to ￡2.60.

The TUC welcomed the rise but Unison said the rates were still too low.

The minimum wage was introduced in 1999 at ￡3.60 an hour for adults, and is set each year by the Low Pay Commission.

The commission recommended this year's increase in a report to the government in April.

It said the increases would balance the needs of low-paid workers and their employers facing difficulties during a period of economic uncertainty.

As levels of youth unemployment are relatively high, it recommended a lower increase for young workers than for their older counterparts, to try to encourage employers to keep them on.

The TUC it estimated the increases would benefit nearly 900,000, mainly female, workers.

The general secretary of the public sector union, Unison, said ￡8 an hour was needed to provide a living wage.

"The rise to ￡6.08 is a welcome cushion, but with the price of everyday essentials such as food, gas and electricity going up massively, it won't lift enough working people out of the poverty trap," Dave Prentis said.

As a result, he called on employers to pay more than the absolute minimum.

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American workers protest lay-offs

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6 October 2011 Last updated at 23:01 GMT By Caroline Hepker BBC News, New York The protesters gather outside City Hall to shout their complaints at the Mayor's office Is America taking a leaf from Europe's protest manual?

It is rare to see demons

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Ericsson up on handset exit news

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6 October 2011 Last updated at 18:13 GMT Sony may merge its phone joint venture with its other mobile gaming business Shares in the Swedish telecoms firm Ericsson have risen on a report that Sony may soon buy it out of their mobile phone handsets joint venture.

The Wall Street Journal says Sony wants to integrate the division with its tablet computer and hand-held games machine businesses.

The report said the Japanese firm may pay its partner up to 1.25bn euros ($1.7bn, ￡1.1bn) for its 50% stake.

Ericsson's shares climbed close to 8% in US trading after the news broke.

'Struggling'

Despite Sony's reputation as a technology innovator, the joint venture has struggled to maintain market share.

Sony Ericsson accounted for 1.7% of all global mobile phone sales between April and June, according to a recent report by technology research firm Gartner.

That compared to a 3% share the previous year.

"The business has been struggling," said Mark McKechnie, a technology analyst at ThinkEquity.

"Sony's decision to use its brand with Ericsson's technology was a good idea, but it didn't work out. Now it wants more control to better compete against Apple and other [Google] Android devices."

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Southern Cross homes transferred

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30 September 2011 Last updated at 07:57 GMT Southern Cross is to be wound up by the end of the year A third of Southern Cross care homes have been transferred to new operators, the company has announced.

Southern Cross said the transfer of 250 homes would be followed by further transfers in October and November.

Southern Cross was the UK's biggest care home operator, with 752 homes, but ran into difficulties when it was unable to pay its rent to landlords.

In July, the firm said it was to cease trading after all of its landlords said they wanted to leave the group.

The first "wave" of homes have been transferred to about 18 different operators.

Its largest landlord, NHP, which owns 249 of the homes, will be included in the second wave.

NHP is forming a new company with turnaround specialists Court Cavendish to run the homes itself.

Winding up

Southern Cross said it had entered unconditional business purchase agreements covering 70% of its homes, with the remaining 30% still in progress.

It said all the homes would be transferred by the end of the year and the company would be wound up.

The company also announced the resignation of it chairman, Christopher Fisher, who stepped into the role in April to oversee the restructuring process.

"Now that the transfer of homes has commenced, I consider my role complete," Mr Fisher said.

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Can the iPhone still scare rivals?

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4 October 2011 Last updated at 23:33 GMT By Tim Weber Business editor, BBC News website Sony Ericsson hopes that Android will help it regain market share The days when Apple had a free run for our smartphone hearts and minds are over.

It's the first time that Apple's latest offering, the iPhone 4S, encounters a truly competitive field of rivals.

The competition is powered by Apple's former partner Google, whose Android operating system for smartphones is rapidly gaining marketshare.

Mobile phonemakers, long suffering under Apple's smartphone dominance, have embraced Android with gusto and are jostling to add software and hardware touches that trump Apple's offering.

The iPhone rivals

Samsung's Galaxy S II, for example, is already slimmer and lighter than both the old iPhone 4 and the new 4S and arguably has a better screen.

Taiwanese competitor HTC, meanwhile, hopes that a clever user interface dubbed HTC Sense will help it to best Apple.

Instead of the iPhone's static icons, HTC has improved Android to offer a raft of rich, dynamic widgets that bring information and functionality directly to the smartphone screen. HTC's Sensation, for example, is currently hard to best in terms of ease of use, not just when compared to the new iPhone but Android rivals as well.

For its top-end phones HTC also throws in a free service that allows owners to track and remotely manage their phones, probably one of the reasons why Apple recently stopped charging for a similar service.

Android has even allowed Sony Ericsson to get back into the game. For several years the company and its lacklustre range of phones have been losing market share; now the company is back with the Android-based Xperia Arc S - a well-built and user-friendly phone that can compete with most rivals.

Apple also lags in terms of hardware innovation, with several competitors pushing phones that sport 3D cameras and glasses-free 3D screens - like the Sharp 3D Aquos, the HTC Evo 3D and the LG Optimus 3D.

Google is also constantly updating Android, and provides the software free to manufacturers. This is not charitable behaviour, of course. Google search is deeply integrated into Android phones, providing healthy profits from clicks on sponsored search results (although a few network operators have begun to point customers to different search engines).

The rise of Android

The rise and rise of Android is reflected in the market share.

According to research firm Gartner, during the second quarter of 2011 Android captured a massive 43.4% of the global smartphone market - up from 17.2% just a year ago.

In contrast, Apple's iPhone software iOS gained just four percentage points to 18.2% - mainly by entering 15 new countries and signing up 42 new network operators to sell the iPhone.

The big losers are Nokia's Symbian smartphones, Blackberry maker RIM - and Microsoft who is struggling to gain traction for its new mobile operating system Windows Phone 7.

Operating System 2nd quarter 2011 2nd quarter 2010

Research in Motion (Blackberry)

Advantage Apple

Despite Android's advances, Apple still dominates the "mindshare" of the smartphone market.

This is less a function of the many Apple fans amongst tech journalists. It's more a question of first-mover advantage and, most importantly, branding.

Dozens of manufacturers are now selling numerous Android phones, ranging from the cheap and cheerful to the high end of the market. Apple and its network partners can focus all marketing around a single brand and - now - two devices.

No wonder that the iPhone is still seen by many as the benchmark against which other smartphones have to be measured - even though the new iPhone 4S has arguably failed to raise this benchmark in a significant manner. Some of the new features on the 4S have been standard on Android phones for many months.

The lack of a big "and one more thing" unveiling by Apple's new chief executive will have been greeted with loud sighs of relief by rivals.

Still, any move by Apple creates headaches for competitors. Internal documents of a mobile phone maker seen by the BBC last week showed how worried this company was that an iPhone 5 could steal all attention from the forthcoming launch of its top-end Android smartphone.

Microsoft, meanwhile...

Amidst all the Android and iPhone frenzy, spare a thought for Microsoft. A year ago and to considerable acclaim the software giant launched an all-new mobile phone software, Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft is betting on a distinct user interface

The operating system broke new ground in terms of usability, with a fresh look and many clever little features that neither Google's nor Apple's developers had thought of. Considering this was version one of the software, it was surprisingly polished.

So far, Microsoft has had little commercial success in return for its efforts. But Microsoft hopes that it can still challenge both Android and iPhone. After ironing out a few software wrinkles it has just launched Windows Phone 7.5, also known as Mango.

It's a compelling offering. The software delivers a deep integration with social networks like no other phone. Short messages exchanged with a friend - whether on SMS, Facebook or Twitter - will show up in one thread chronicling the conversation, regardless of which service was used.

A contact stored on the phone shows not just address and phone number but the most recent Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn status updates too. And the diary is easier to use than any other.

However, Microsoft's fresh assault on the smartphone market is slow out of the starting blocks.

Mango was presented to the public many months ago. A few handset makers have announced a handful of new Windows phones. The first HTC phones running Mango are only now - slowly - arriving in the shops. Microsoft's new best friend, struggling Finnish phone company Nokia, won't launch its first Windows phone before 26 October, at Nokia World in London.

Apple, in contrast, is set to bring the iPhone 4S to market in less than two weeks.

The ecosystem

As operating systems and mobile phone makers jostle for position (don't forget RIM's Blackberry, about to roll out a range of handsets with a new operating system) it may be neither clever software nor stunning hardware that decides who will win the smartphone war.

The clincher will be the services connected to smartphones. Just as Google uses Android to lure people into their ecosystem, from email to media storage to YouTube videos to documents, Apple tries to lock in its customers into the world of iTunes and iCloud services.

Surprisingly, it is Microsoft that is offering the most open mobile phone ecosystem right now.

Consumers should be able to cherish this fierce competition. They may not get the chance. As iPhones, Androids and other devices rush to market, the patent lawyers of all sides are gearing up for epic court battles over patents and protected designs.

Not all that we'll see presented on stage will reach consumers' hands.

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